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So great to see an article about Godel incompleteness in the new yorker. I think in general Godel incompleteness and Turing incompleteness should get more press
by mathgenius 10y ago
So great to see an article about Godel incompleteness in the new yorker. I think in general Godel incompleteness and Turing incompleteness should get more press. Chaitin has written some good books about this, but there needs to be more. There are these fundamental limits to knowledge and this is an important fact that people should know about.
> “There is more to truth than can be caught by proof.”
That's a nice way of putting it.
- curiousgal 10y agoI can sadly see that quote taken out of context to justify the paranormal or other crap.
- greyman 10y agoWhy such an usage is "out of context"? [Not saying it isn't, but I'd like to see some proof. :-)]
- juk3 10y agoYup. These articles much more than their focus on Godel and his fan club would do us all a favor to focus on - How do people day to day deal with ambiguity, where the truth is uncertain or unknowable? The default action always is - they choose the truth they want to be true. And this has long term consequences. They should develop self awareness that it is a chosen truth and feel a sense of responsibility for its consequences. The example I given students when I teach where things worked out well, is Thomas Jefferson's - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal". We still know 240 years later there is nothing self-evident or truthful about equality. We don't know if it will ever be. Jefferson knew that. Yet he made a choice about what he wanted the truth to be. We face similar choices everyday in life. Choose well.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dllthomas 10y agoICYMI: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/loopsnoop.html http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/loopsnoop.html